


Mountjoy's Disgrace

by localfreak



Category: Follies Series- Hilary Green
Genre: Gen, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 21:54:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7591780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/localfreak/pseuds/localfreak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had expected to be summoned to his father’s study the moment he arrived and was not disappointed. He half expected his father to be wielding a cane- like one of his old schoolmasters- but found he did not. His father never had needed a weapon to hurt his sons. Words were quite sufficient.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mountjoy's Disgrace

He had expected to be summoned to his father’s study the moment he arrived and was not disappointed. He half expected his father to be wielding a cane- like one of his old schoolmasters- but found he did not. His father never had needed a weapon to hurt his sons. Words were quite sufficient.

“Edward. I honestly can’t comprehend how you dare to show your face here.”

Ned stared at his Father. He had expected him to be furious, but the cold tone of his voice was a new level of anger - after all, it was nearly three weeks now, surely the fury should’ve burnt itself out just a little?

“Father-,” he began, uncertainly.

“No, Edward, no. I am not interested in your lies and your excuses. Yes, you were drunk, so you say, but that does not absolve you of what you have done. You have disgraced yourself.You have disgraced this family and you have disgraced me. And though all this messy business, all the favours I have had to call in, all the journalists I have had to silence- you have forced me to dirty my hands to disguise your sin, the untold damage you have done to your immortal soul. All this- and you walk in through those doors as if – as if you have not the slightest amount of shame and guilt.”

“I am ashamed, Father, of course I am. What more can I say?”

“Nothing. There is nothing you can say, Edward, which will blot out this mark. You have always been flighty- weak of character- unlike your brother Anthony and easily led-“

“Oh _brother Anthony_ ” Ned spat, “of course he could do no wrong-“

“Silence!” Lord Malpas bellowed. The study seemed unbearably quiet for several moments after.

“Of course your mother blames herself. You have always sought danger and courted dangerous habits; have been wilder and conducted yourself in a manner which at times I considered ill-suited to a gentleman. Hanging around that disreputable uncle of yours-“

“Leave the old boy alone!”

“-playing about with magic tricks, for instance. But of course, you have always been charming, and charming people can get away with many things. Now, you have found yourself in a situation that charm and clever talk cannot get you out of, and I have fixed it. I cannot disguise that you have been sent down- the first I impress upon you, the very first for many generations who will never be able to hold his head high as a Cambridge man, but at least, beyond immediate family, others will not know the cause.”

Lord Malpas broke off for a moment, mopping his brow and sighing deeply, but Ned did not speak. For the first time in his life he felt quite struck dumb. The flush of humiliation burned his cheeks and the back of his neck and he clenched his fists in his lap.

“The fact remains, however, that I know what you have done. So does your mother, and your brother. And I, for one, do not believe a word of your excuses to the constabulary. You have shown in yourself a degenerate attitude that is abhorrent in not only the eyes of men but in the eyes of God. You have transgressed and I know that face of yours too well to believe that it was the first time, or a drunken accident- and if it was, it has served only to display to your own self and the world the truest and deepest sickness of your character, a blight on your very soul. You cannot stay here.”

“What? But-Mother-“

“Your mother feels as I do, if not more strongly. The thought that this boy, who we have loved, who we have nurtured, has grown into such…such abominable habits…it makes her physically sick to contemplate.”

Ned rose unsteadily to meet his Father eye to eye. His entire face burned and his eyes throbbed with tears that he was determined not to shed and demonstrate his unmanliness all the more. He’d be damned all the more if he took this sitting like a naughty child rather than face the old boy like a man.

“Very well, Father. You have made your point. I shall leave at once.” Ned thought for a second this might be a bluff- a test to see what he would do, and so he scarcely expected his father to follow through with his words.

“I knew you would see it has to be this way. I am gratified that you have not-yet- sunk so far. I have permitted you to access your own account, which contains that small legacy of your Aunt’s which should sustain you. You will be permitted to pack your things as long as you are gone from here before the evening bell is rung. I can but hope that in your exile you will learn to mend your ways and behave industriously and God may have mercy upon you, but remember my leniency.”

“Leniency!” Ned exclaimed. “Throwing out your own son!”

“Indeed. Know this Edward Mountjoy if I hear your name uttered in my presence, if I hear the slightest whisper of your actions: that you have caused a hint of scandal you will find yourself summarily incarcerated in the nearest sanatorium.”

“You don’t mean that, surely. What about your precious family honour?” Ned jeered. He couldn’t help himself, though he regretted it the second the words slipped from him as his father raised a hand and struck him, hard enough to make Ned reel backwards.

“Better a madman in the family than a sodomite! Now get out before I change my mind about giving you time to pack!”

Ned hesitated, the anger, which had been buoying him upright suddenly evaporating as he stared into the old man’s eyes. He was exhausted, humiliated after days of no sleep, crushing guilt and disgrace at Cambridge, but yet it seemed there would be no end to his ordeal. No soft bed- as he had longed for on the long train ride home- no friends to console him or walks in the rose garden to ease his thoughts. All that he had clung to had crumbled at his father’s words.

_Better a madman than a sodomite._

Ned left the room and packed in haste. That was what he was, wasn’t it? A sodomite. He had known it even before Cambridge, really. It was just, there in their little circle of friends it hadn’t seemed so bad. It hadn’t seemed like a sin.

But, of course it was. He could almost hear the rector’s voice. _Sin beguiles, sin entices- the road to hell is wide and smooth and easy to walk._

Ned- disgraced Ned, feeling more lost and alone that he had ever felt as a child, left the house without sight or sound of anyone, and began a long, weary journey back to London with no hope or thought as to where he could stay once he got there. Certainly he could see no one he had known before. He did not doubt his father’s words. Ned Mountjoy must disappear voluntarily, or he would find himself forcibly so.


End file.
